tell your mother it wasn't i
by amonitrate
Summary: The kids, are they scared off if you wear a mask?" A Halloween tale.


At first Rhodey thinks it's a toy.

They'd cropped up a few months after the Iron Man press conference: tee-shirts, then fully posable action figures, dolls, rubber Halloween masks, and finally the full deal. Some of the costumes were surprisingly accurate, even. For fifty bucks (gauntlets sold extra) you could outfit your kid in a shiny fabric jumpsuit version of the armor, complete with light-up arc reactor. For a bit more than that you could get a custom version made from plastic that fit together in a simplified but convincing replica of one of the most advanced weapons systems in the world. Every few weeks he'd get an email from Tony with a jpg attachment showing the latest cheap Iron Man rip-off. Tony usually didn't comment but the most recent, sent on Columbus Day, had read -- They come in big-boy sizes, too. Just say the word and it's yours. I'll go as Captain America. Already got the shield.

Rhodey doesn't understand parents. He sure as hell wouldn't want his kid idolizing Tony Stark, even the newly reformed version. And after this... after this, he's not sure he'll be able to stop himself from ripping the mask off the next kid he sees.

* * *

He gets the initial call around 1800. Tony doesn't bother with a greeting; he never does.

"Whatcha doing tonight?"

Rhodey has another hour's worth of paperwork. What he really wants is a little peace and quiet. Maybe a beer. "Thought I'd stay in. Hand out candy."

From the weird dead-air sound on the other end of the line, Tony's in the armor. "Uh-huh. You get many trick-or-treaters in your neighborhood?"

"A few." Last year there'd been... maybe fifteen. Total. The majority of the local kids are in high school now.

"Right. So what kind of candy did you get 'em?" Tony does this. Calls when he's half-way across the world for a little mindless chit-chat. Most of the time he never admits he's on a mission. Even when he does he never wants to talk about it.

"One of those variety packs. Something on your mind, Tony?"

"Variety packs? Jesus, James, you're so indecisive you actually buy those--"

"They're not for me. They're for the kids. I like to give them a choice."

"Of course you do." There's a long pause and when Tony speaks again, it's rushed and distracted. "Yeah. Have fun with that." And the call cuts off.

* * *

"What do... um. Are you in a costume when you answer the door?"

Rhodey's in his neighborhood liquor store staring at the array of chilled six-packs when Tony calls back.

"In costume?" He only has half of his attention on the call. The rest is considering the advantages of an import versus a local microbrew.

"Yeah. You know. When you're handing out the candy."

This time Tony's voice is pitched low, like he's trying not to be overheard. Thing is, Rhodey knows from experience that what Tony says in the confines of the helmet can be cut off from the outside world. To be heard he has to project his voice through an amplifier. So whispering is a little silly, and probably unconscious. Where the hell is he this time?

"Not usually. Sometimes I stay in uniform."

"Uh-huh. So, you never wear a mask?"

"What're you--"

"Rhodey, just answer me, okay? The kids, are they scared off if you wear a mask? Is that why you don't do it?"

Rhodey forgets the beer. "Tony, what's going on? Where are you?"

"Never mind--"

"Yeah. The first time I wore a mask a few of the littler kids cried. So I stopped."

"Figures. Fuck." And then he's left with silence again.

* * *

Five groups of trick-or-treaters in and Rhodey's already had three Iron Men. Well, more precisely, two Iron Boys and an Iron Girl. He's also had a traditional black-hatted witch, a monkey, a wedge of Swiss cheese, and two Harry Potters.

"How'd you make them stop crying?" It's two hours later and Tony's not whispering anymore, like he remembered he doesn't have to, but the flat lack of ambient sound makes it seem like he's calling from space.

Rhodey sets down his plastic bucket of candy and shuts the screen door, watching the last gaggle of kids make their way to the next house. "What's going on?"

"I can't -- Rhodey, I don't have time for this, okay? What did you do when they cried?"

"I didn't do anything. The parents mostly carried them off."

"Right, right. Parents." Tony drags in a noisy breath. "Okay. Not helpful."

Whatever Tony's gotten himself into, there's nothing Rhodey can do about it over the phone. Then he remembers. It's obvious, but then Tony hasn't exactly spent much time around kids.

"Tony?"

There's a long silence broken only by a slight static, where Rhodey can't hear even Tony breathing anymore -- there must be some kind of kill switch built into the armor's cellular connection that shuts off the sound after he goes more than a few seconds without speaking -- and then: "Yeah?"

Rhodey scrambles to remember what he meant to say. "When they'd cry, first thing I'd do is take off the mask."

Tony doesn't say anything, but the call doesn't disconnect, either.

"You still there?" Rhodey strains to hear anything over the line, but again, there's nothing. Just the hollow ocean-rush, like he's got his ear against a conch. "Tony?"

"Yeah."

"Talk to me. Where are you?"

"Bakersfield."

It's so far from what he's expecting to hear that his brain blanks out for a second. "Bakersfield? Bakersfield, California?"

"No, the one in Pakistan," Tony snaps. "I take it you're not watching--"

The call cuts off. Rhodey throws down his phone and flips on the television.

* * *

Even gunning the engine for all it's worth it takes Rhodey two hours to make it to Bakersfield. The blockade starts a quarter mile away from Evergreen Elementary School, ground zero -- the talking head on CNN had said they'd evacuated the houses in the perimeter. Whatever's really going down, the media was told a truck carrying toxic waste overturned. If he hadn't known Tony was somewhere inside, he'd still have seen through the tale. Rhodey knows a thin cover story when he hears it.

He doesn't call Tony. Doesn't want to distract him. All he knows is there are kids involved, and the last time he remembers Tony in the general vicinity of anyone under the age of eighteen was Rhodey's nephew's third birthday, and fish out of water didn't even begin to describe Tony's reaction. When he reaches the blockade he expects the police to turn him away but instead when he flashes his Air Force ID the cop seems relieved.

"Col. Rhodes. She said you might come."

She? The beat cop -- hardly more than a kid herself -- ushers him through the perimeter. By the time he's climbed out of his truck he sees Pepper heading towards him through the floodlights, hair pulled back in a hasty ponytail, her headset flashing blue at one ear.

"He called you, didn't he?" she demands as soon as she's within range.

"Pepper, what's--"

"He cut off contact with me. With S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Yeah, he called me a couple of times. He didn't tell me where he was at first. What's going on?"

"He didn't tell you?"

"Would I be asking if he had?"

Pepper glances back towards what looks like a mobile command center of some kind in the school parking lot, all bright lights and bustling flak jackets. Alphabet soup. "This is a S.H.I.E.L.D. operation, they're not going to be happy you're here."

"Pepper--"

She's washed out by the unnatural light, a too-large nylon S.H.I.E.L.D. jacket draped over her blouse. It's still seventy degrees even in the dark, so the jacket isn't for the warmth. And when had Pepper started working for S.H.I.E.L.D.?

"It was a party. A Halloween party, for the local kids. A way to keep them off the streets. Someone stormed the place, ordered the adults out. A few refused and the bodies showed up outside a few minutes later."

"Why involve Tony? Sounds like a matter for the local S.W.A.T. team."

Pepper rubs at her temple, lets her eyes fall briefly closed. "The first team didn't make it past the sidewalk outside."

"How many do they think are inside? What're they armed with?"

"That's the thing," Pepper says, "According to witness description, there's just one man, in an Iron Man costume. And he's unarmed."

Jesus. He lets the costume part go, for now, as the least weird part of this whole thing. "What do you mean, unarmed? How'd--"

"No one saw any weapons. The bodies just appeared, Rhodey. Right on the sidewalk. And the S.W.A.T. team dropped dead where they stood. Picked off one at a time."

Jesus. "Some kind of poison?"

"You're not listening. According to the witnesses, the bodies materialized. Out of thin air. And there's no sign of a cause of death."

Rhodey stares at her. "That's science fiction, Pepper."

"There's security camera footage."

"Maybe something interfered with the signal from the camera--"

"You've heard about the Hulk?"

Rumors, mostly, and a whole lot of thinly-veiled cover-up. Yeah, he'd heard. Didn't mean he'd believed any of it. "You're telling me those children have been taken hostage by a green body-builder on steroids?"

Pepper shakes her head. "As far as we know, Dr. Banner is somewhere in Canada, so no. But he's not the only example of unusual phenomenon S.H.I.E.L.D. has documented. We don't know what we're dealing with here, whether his... abilities are natural or some kind of technological enhancile. He hasn't made any demands. But there are about twenty kids in there with him, and we haven't heard a peep from Tony for--"

"Lemme guess. Two and a half hours or so?"

Pepper nods. "What did he tell you when he called?"

"Nothing. Kept asking me what I was gonna do tonight, then about whether kids were scared of masks. I didn't know--" Rhodey breaks off. "Beyond the fact that some psycho decided to impersonate him, why Tony? Hostage situations aren't his usual gig."

"General Fury called him. Tony was the closest to the scene, and they thought maybe the armor's life support system might protect him from... whatever it is. The last transmission we got from him, he said Jarvis was picking up electro--" Pepper turns half away from him, her hand flying up to her ear. "Tony? Tony, if you're there... dammit." She drops her hand and turns to him. "I had him for a moment and he cut off."

Five seconds later, Rhodey's cell phone rings.

"Tony?"

"I can't take off the helmet. I can't flip back the face plate." Tony's voice was thin. "I can't get any closer, or he'll--"

"What? Oh God." Pepper whirls and starts back towards the command center, nearly running. She's wearing track shoes with her suit and incongruous jacket.

He holds his phone to his ear and jogs after her. "Tony?"

"No. Nonono." Tony mutters, just under his breath. "Stopcryingstop--"

"Tony? Tony, talk to me. What's going on."

"I dunno, I don't--" And that's it. The signal is gone.

By the time Rhodey catches up with Pepper she's in a huddle with two men in identical black jackets. He half-recognizes the shorter of the two, and it's clear he must be the one in charge from the way Pepper's completely ignoring the other man.

"You can't do that," she says. "We don't know what--"

"Miss Potts, we don't even know if anyone's alive in there." The second man tries to use his linebacker's shoulders to push Pepper out of the conversation, but she doesn't even spare him a glance.

"Coulson--"

"I just had him," Rhodey interjects, holding up his phone. "Tony's alive."

Pepper turns toward him, her eyes wide and a little glassy. "Two kids just... they're... on the sidewalk." Then she gestures to the receiver Coulson is holding, a small screen the size of an iPhone, with a fuzzy camera feed. Two small bodies, laying side by side. A lady-bug and a teddy-bear. They're holding hands.

"Jesus." Rhodey's hand clenches around his phone. "What the hell does this guy want? Why's he--"

"We don't know," Coulson says.

* * *

Tony doesn't call again. Instead, twenty minutes later, just as Coulson's team is getting ready to do whatever Pepper had objected to, a stream of children comes rushing out of the school in twos and threes, running, stumbling, a couple of the older kids carrying the ones too little to run. Rhodey sees it on Coulson's screen, and then in person as every adult present bolts forward out of blind instinct, ignoring Coulson's order to stay back.

Rhodey counts fifteen little kids, the oldest maybe middle-school aged. They're a blur of masked faces and runny makeup, saucer eyes and trailing wings. Pepper hangs back, scanning the crowd, but there's no sign of Tony. The kid in the lead looks about eleven and most of her facepaint has been rubbed away but she's still wearing a set of plastic vampire fangs that slur her words when one of Coulson's people grabs her.

"I dunno, I dunno," Rhodey hears her say, echoing Tony's last words to him. "He told us to run."

"Who?" Rhodey can't see who asked.

"The man," the vampire girl says. "The man in the costume. Is it okay to cry now?"

As Pepper meets his eyes over the crowd, one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents tells the cluster of kids that they're safe, and Rhodey watches as the girl's smudged face crumples into tears.

* * *

The next time Rhodey hears Tony's voice, it's through the filter of the helmet.

Coulson only fights his presence on the first team to go in for five minutes and Pepper's the deciding vote. "Tony trusts him," she says, and Coulson's lips thin. The residue of recent strife lingers in whatever it is they're not saying, but Rhodey just waits and Coulson finally agrees.

The one-story school building is dark.

"Looks like the power's blown," one of Coulson's goons says into the headset Pepper snagged for Rhodey. He's in a borrowed vest and helmet, and he hopes to God Tony took care of whatever killed those people, because he hasn't felt this exposed since his stint in SERE training.

He sticks to the middle of the five-man team, following their lead. This isn't his area, not at all. Give him a cramped cockpit any day over this creeping through the dark, guns drawn, everything painted a ghostly green through the night-vision goggles. The low-ceilinged hallways are plastered with cut-paper bats and jack-o-lanterns, signs of children everywhere he looks. On the way in they pass an orphaned sneaker, a dropped fairy wand, a set of cat's ears on a headband.

A boy dressed as a cartoon character Rhodey didn't recognize had shown them on a schematic of the building where the children had been held. So all Rhodey can do is trust the agent in the lead and follow through the winding halls until the man holds up a hand as a signal outside the door to what must be the gymnasium.

There's no sound from beyond the open doors. No sound at all. Pepper's voice is a steady presence in his ear, though. "Get him out of there, Rhodey. Whatever's happened, get him out of there." And then: "There are three kids still missing."

The lead agent gives the signal and they storm the gym, the beams of their laser sights playing over the streamers, the wrapped candy scattered all over the hardwood floor. Then there's a high-pitched screech and Rhodey freezes, searching the room. There, under one of the cafeteria tables, he can see a hunched figure, a boy no more than seven, a mask pushed up on the top of his head, his eyes huge and black in the weird light of the goggles.

Rhodey grits his teeth as the boy screams again, a terrified animal sound. They can't help him, not until they know the room is clear. Then, a voice in his ear, one of the agents on his team. "There -- by the bleachers. I've got an adult sized body in... some kind of costume. Fuck. I think it's Stark."

Pepper's voice is very, very calm. "Rhodey, can you confirm that? Do you see him?"

Rhodey breaks away from the team and heads towards the bleachers. But before he can get there, he stumbles across what he thinks is another dropped toy, maybe a doll. When he drops down to one knee he can see from the loose fists that it's not a toy at all, but a toddler in an Iron Man costume, the face still covered by a plastic mask. There's no pulse at the throat.

So he moves on to his original objective by the bleachers. It's an adult all right, lying prone on the gym floor, and in the eerie green of the night vision he can see what looks like the metallic glint of armor. The light in its chest burns brighter than white phosphorus, so bright he can't look directly at it, not with these goggles on. If this is a costume, it's the most realistic he's ever seen.

He wants to shout Tony's name but he can't. If it is Tony, whoever did this might still be here. So he approaches with his rifle trained on the figure, and as he gets close he's sure it's the armor, there's the gauntlets, there's the jet boots, there's the blank face plate, the eye slits gone dark.

One of the other team members circles around to the figure's feet and Rhodey slings his rifle over his shoulder, bending down near the helmet. There's a scorched hole about two hands wide just under the chest plate. Jesus. Jesus.

"Rhodey, if you can, talk to me," Pepper says, a bare edge of strain finally breaking through.

"We got another kid over here," says another voice in his ear, and from the tone Rhodey knows that kid's dead, too. He reaches out for the helmet's release and his hand is steadier than it has any right to be.

"Don't touch him."

This voice isn't coming from his headset. It's flat and deep and mechanical. He nearly doesn't recognize it, reaches out anyway, and just as the tips of his fingers brush the edge of the helmet he hears a familiar high whine. Before he can react there's a blinding flash of light and he's thrown back five feet, his head cracking against his helmet as he hits the floor.

He can't see, he can't see anything; it's exactly like a camera flash has gone off right in his face, and he has to close his eyes until it clears. When he sits up and tears off the goggles, it's just in time to see the red beams of every rifle in the room swinging around towards the figure that's stepped forward, the palm of one gauntlet still glowing. Two narrow slits for eyes, a round blue-white light in the intact chest.

"Hold your fire!" Rhodey shouts, and he's not sure whether it's to the four S.H.I.E.L.D. agents or to the man in the armor. The other man in the armor. It has to be Tony. It has to be.

The gauntlet lowers about a foot but stays steady, trained on the body on the floor.

"He might not be dead," the voice says. He knows it's Tony now, the filters he's got in the helmet add depth to the tone but the cadence is the same. "I don't know if he's dead."

The little boy under the table starts wailing again. Rhodey picks himself up off the floor. The red dots don't budge from the armor's chest and head. They could fire, but it wouldn't do much damage. Not with the caliber of bullet they're carrying.

He picks his way back to the body on the floor. It's hard to see without much light, but now that he knows what he's looking at, the armor is obviously plastic. It's a masterful copy, though.

"Don't touch it," Iron Man says. The real Iron Man.

"Tony." Rhodey faces him, wishing he'd raise the faceplate. He's never gotten used to talking to a robot. "He's got a hole in his belly that says otherwise."

"He didn't go down the first time. I don't think he's... Rhodey?"

"Rhodey, please, just--" Pepper again.

"He's okay, Pepper. He's here--" Rhodey starts.

"We don't know that, we need to make visual confirmation," the lead agent bites off. They haven't lowered their weapons, not an inch. "Show us your face."

"Rhodey, what are you doing here?" Iron Man takes a step back, the helmet tilted to one side just the slightest bit, giving every impression of confusion despite the expressionless metal visage.

"I'm ordering you to show your face," the agent barks.

"There's another kid," Iron Man says, and even through the voice filters, it's bordering on frantic. "I think there's another kid. I can still hear one of them yelling." Not a tone he's used to hearing from Tony, it grates down his spine, trying to spark his own panic.

"He's under the table," Rhodey says. "I think he's alright, he's just scared. What happened here?"

"They wouldn't stop crying. Once one started--"

"Show your face NOW."

"Tony, just take off the helmet. Whoever he is, he's dead. You can take off the helmet now."

Rhodey's pretty sure the S.H.I.E.L.D. team is about to open fire, armor or no. They'd all taken their eyes off of the body on the floor. Right at the moment when Rhodey's certain it's going to go to hell it does, but not in the way any of them saw coming. Well, maybe not any of them except Tony. One of the agents lets out a strangled scream and falls to the floor, his back arching in convulsions. At the same moment, the prone suit of fake armor on the floor sits up.

Rhodey scrambles for his rifle and the other three agents swing around, laser sights vacillating between the two Iron Men.

"Put down your guns or you all die horribly," the damaged armor says. The voice is a reasonable imitation of Tony's own, but with a melodramatic flair usually reserved for comic books and action movies.

Tony -- Iron Man -- isn't paying any attention. Instead, his head is cocked to the side again. This time he doesn't look confused. His stance straightens, armored shoulders back. "That kid. The one who was screaming. Where did you say he was?"

And Rhodey realizes the kid has gone silent -- maybe he passed out. Rhodey can't look away from the other set of armor long enough to see what Tony's doing.

"Under the table," he says. The downed agent lets out a choking moan. Flickers of blue light play over his skin like foxfire.

"Halt!" the imposter yells. "Halt where you are, or I'll kill them all. You know I can do it."

Iron Man freezes, and Rhodey spares a glance his way. "Yeah," Iron Man says. "You can shout cheesy threats all you want. But you can only do one at a time, can't you? They're adults. Takes more energy." With that he turns and heads for the table.

"Tony, what're you--"

The writhing agent lets out a gurgle and goes limp. Iron Man stands over the table where the little boy had cowered, his right gauntlet aimed down, the whine of the repulsor starting to build. Rhodey can just see the top of the boy's head, one of his wide eyes.

"I'll kill your friend!" the imposter screams. "I'll get rid of him like I did those other crybabies!"

"Tony, what the hell are you doing?" Rhodey shouts.

"You know you can't affect me," Tony says to the boy. "You know what I can do. Let them go."

"Make me!" the fake armor squeals.

It starts as a tingle, like the feeling you get when your foot falls asleep, but it builds, and builds, and in seconds Rhodey's dropping to his knees, all muscle control gone. Iron Man's mask turns his way, the expressionless face staring, and then he turns back to the kid under the table. The repulsor in his right gauntlet flares.

"NO! Tony, he's just a little boy, what the hell are you--" and then he can't speak.

"That's not a little boy," Tony says.

"STARK!" One of the agents shouts.

The imposter rises to its feet. "He's crazy! You see? You see?"

"You're going to have to make a choice," Tony says to the boy. "You can't maintain control over your puppet and finish off both of these agents you're torturing, can you?"

Three things happen in sequence, nearly too fast for Rhodey to follow. First, the impostor topples over. Second, the electric tickle playing over his skin builds to a nearly unbearable agony, his skin crawling and burning, his muscles clenched. And third, Tony fires his repulsor.

The little boy screams.

Rhodey collapses to his side, the burn of unnatural electricity vanishing as if it had never been.

Tony steps forward, both his palms out now, the glow from the repulsors undiminished. The boy is on his back under the table, but there isn't a wound that Rhodey can see.

"Tony!" Rhodey shouted. "Stop it! You'll kill him!"

"He killed three of the parents," Tony says, his voice gone robotic. "Eight cops. Four little -- four _actual _children. He tried to kill you."

The three remaining agents have their guns on Tony again.

"That was the man in the fake armor," Rhodey said, finding his knees, then his feet. "Tony--"

"Yeah?" Tony says. He doesn't turn away from the motionless kid. "That what you think?" The glowing light in one of his palms fades out as his hand folds into a fist, then throbs in the darkness as he uncurls his fingers, flattening the palm back out towards the kid on the floor.

"Tony--"

One of the agents reaches his side. "Col. Rhodes, there's no one in that armor," he says.

Rhodey whirls. Sure enough, the false armor lies in scattered pieces where it had fallen, empty as a discarded snake skin.

Iron Man turns his head toward Rhodey. "There's no one else left."

With that he reaches up and triggers something and the faceplate snaps back with a muted hiss. His face glows a faint bluish in the light of the arc reactor, but there's no question that it's Tony, and the agents finally lower their guns.

There's a moment where everything makes sense again and then the blue light changes, intensifying, crackling over the exposed skin of Tony's face. Tony's gasp of pain cuts off as the faceplate flies down into place and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents turn their rifle sights back on the kid.

At first Rhodey doesn't know what he's hearing, and then he realizes... it's giggles. Childish giggles from under the table, and the hair on his arms stands up.

"You gonna shoot me again with your death ray?" The boy sits up, smiling wide.

"If I have to," Iron Man says.

The boy crawls out from under the table and pulls himself to his feet. He barely reaches Iron Man's waist, his perfectly even teeth are white in the glow from Tony's arc reactor

"But I'm _just a little kid_."

And Rhodey feels it again, the tingle like someone's plugged him in to a wall socket. Tony doesn't even glance his way, just hits the kid with a two-handed repulsor blast, and the electrical tingle dies as the kid is driven into the floor with a thud Rhodey swears he can hear, even over the dying echo of the blast. He lays still, finally, arms and legs loose as a broken doll's.

"He's not dead," Iron Man says to Rhodey. "So don't look at me like that."

He doesn't speak again until the lights come back on.

* * *

Coulson is the first one through the door, not five minutes after the gym is flooded with fluorescent light, and Pepper is two paces behind him. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents swarm the place like nylon-jacketed beetles, searching every corner, and they find another toddler huddled inside a cardboard haunted house. This one is still alive. Alive and mute with terror, but then he sees Iron Man and starts screaming. Screaming and screaming and screaming, until his voice gives out.

Tony doesn't lift the face plate. Doesn't react at all, just keeps his repulsors trained on the prone form of the other boy until a pair of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents arrive with some kind of covered stretcher straight out of _Outbreak_.

The kid is dressed as Captain America, in a homemade costume with leather gloves, just as detailed as the empty suit of Iron Man armor. Later they'll find his scale-model papier-mâché shield under the cafeteria table where he'd been hiding.

* * *

Pepper is at Tony's side by the time one of Coulson's men finishes debriefing Rhodey. Tony's helmet is cradled in the crook of one arm, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. He shakes his head at whatever Pepper is saying, his lips pressed together in a thin line.

"--were we supposed to do, Tony? You'd cut off communication--"

"It was too distracting," Tony grounds out. "I couldn't think."

He doesn't look up when Rhodey reaches them, his eyes locked on the group of agents and technicians securing the boy into the stretcher. An I.V. -- probably a sedative -- runs into one of the boy's arms. Rhodey knows what he saw, knows Tony didn't have a choice, but in the light the bogeyman is nothing but a kid. Just a kid in a costume. And Rhodey's not sure he could have done what Tony did -- blast an unarmed child. Twice.

Pepper spares Rhodey a quick half-smile before her attention darts back to Tony. "The agent he attacked is going to be okay," she says. "Fury called in a specialist on mutant children. A team is coming from the East Coast but for the time being S.H.I.E.L.D.'s going to keep the boy in one of their containment centers."

"Tell them whatever they hold him in, it's gotta be electromagnetically shielded, like a Faraday cage," Tony replies.

"Why didn't--" Rhodey starts.

"Titanium," Tony cuts him off. Right. The armor is a titanium alloy, and titanium is a poor conductor of electricity. The human body, on the other hand...

Pepper nods. "We think he's able to manipulate something like the electrical discharge that causes lightning. Much weaker than a lightning strike, but just as deadly."

Years ago Rhodey was briefed about the existence of mutants, but he's never actually met one. And even now, he's not sure he believes his own eyes.

"How'd he--"

"Control the other suit?" Tony interrupts again. "Same principle. Static electricity, finely controlled."

"What about his parents?" Rhodey asks, and this time Tony lets him get out a complete sentence.

Pepper frowns. "We haven't located them."

"If they even exist," Tony says. Rhodey follows his gaze across the room in time to see the local medical examiner wheeling out two stretchers topped with kid-sized body bags.

"He didn't have any kind of identification on him," Pepper explains. "We don't even know his name. Near as we can tell from the witness reports he showed up at the party chaperoned by that... empty costume."

"What did he want?" Rhodey says finally.

The agents finish locking the boy into his clear plastic compartment and start wheeling the stretcher toward the exit. Pepper shakes her head. Tony's free hand, still in the gauntlet, tightens into a fist and Rhodey can hear the faint hum of the repulsor.

Tony doesn't answer until he's pulled on the helmet and the blank plane of the face plate has snapped into place. "Does it matter?" Then Iron Man -- the real Iron Man -- stalks away after the stretcher, his boots clunking heavily on the polished wood floor of the gymnasium.

"He's going to escort the boy to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters," Pepper tells Rhodey after he vanishes through the door.

Rhodey scrubs a hand over his face. "That's... probably a good idea."

Pepper's professional facade buckles around the edges, just a little. "Before he cut us off he told us the... the other suit, the Iron Man costume? It got angry when the children started crying. It said it would give them something to cry about."

_How'd you make them stop crying?_ Tony had asked him, hours ago, in another universe altogether. _What did you do when they cried?_

* * *

The S.H.I.E.L.D. chopper lands in the school's parking lot. The police hold back the freed kids and their parents, and a few of them break into hysterical sobbing when Tony comes into view.

"How'd you know he'd called me?" Rhodey asks Pepper as they watch the agents load the covered stretcher into the chopper.

"You're the only person he trusts who has any experience with children," Pepper answers.

* * *

Rhodey's back on the 101, squinting in exhaustion at the exit signs, when his phone rings.

"How come you're not home yet?" It's Tony. Who else would it be? He doesn't bother to ask how Tony knows he's still on the road. He's half afraid that if he looks up out of his windshield at the night sky he'll see a metallic phantom cruising along above him.

"Traffic," Rhodey lies.

"Uh-huh. At one o'clock in the morning?" Tony doesn't wait for him to respond. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"You called me, remember?"

"I didn't tell you to join the fucking strike team."

Rhodey finds his exit, finally, and autopilot takes over, guiding him through the familiar streets towards his neighborhood. "Don't talk to me like I'm a civilian, Tony. I take it you didn't have any trouble getting the kid secured?"

"He's off to the land of Nod," Tony says.

Nod? "Good. Are they going to... you know. Interrogate him? Try to find out why he did it?"

"You think they'd learn anything?" There's a long silence, and when Tony speaks again, it's in an ironic sing-song. "Cry, baby, cry, stick your finger in your eye..."

"Jesus, Tony, are you trying to freak me out?"

Tony laughs. "Jarvis says it's a nursery rhyme."

A nursery rhyme. Rhodey doesn't ask where Tony picked it up, afraid he probably already knows. His memory conjures up the face of the little vampire girl who'd led the kids out of the school._ Is it okay to cry now?_ she'd asked.

Tony doesn't say anything else. When the call ends Rhodey's tired enough that he's more relieved than anything else. And the next time he's down in Tony's workshop he doesn't comment on the absence of the miniature army of Iron Man action figures that had lined the table under the television for the last couple of months.

The toys just aren't funny anymore.


End file.
